Playing it on the Anthys map - which I don't think is affected by map settings.
So with Dense magic, I've found a total of 5 or 6 shards.
I've been playing like 10 hrs, finally got a good base cleared out and have 5 thriving cities.
Couple points:
On the Anythys map wildlands are weird, no definite borders and you can settle them immediately. Mobs seem to roam a bit but stay generally at home.
What is the logic for monster spawns? They seem to:
- Crank out spawns really quick - even 5k stacks of fire elementals
- Generally stay nearby, but will occasionally roam
- Rarely attack cities (even though I usually get nightwatch up quickly)
- Packs do seem to chase you for awhile then lose interest...
- IMO - and not sure if this is possible, pack creation time should vary with hp. That 600 hp stack of wildlings should generate in X turns while that 5k stack of elementals should generate in 5X turns. Which might already be the case, but if so X needs to be increased.
- Last night I opened up some map and there are wildlings STACKED on top of each other. Like many many stacks of 4. I've got a nasty archer guy, so its easy to kill them... but its boring and I doubt the AI can kill all 9 units in 3 turns - flurry, explosive, spread, something... who has maxed out his abilities and can't select anything else over lvl 20. Its just boring to clear out so many mobs just for the sake of clearing.
Which brings up another point - why are champions so damn expensive? 3k for a level 5? Are we paying for the whole army now? Do we get the army or do they disappear like in vanilla. I've never been able to save up enough to get one so this is the second game with only 2 champions. I finally said screw it and took over two other civs just to force them to surrender and get 2 heroes.
Bugs:
that 5k elemental stack from the caldera spawn - in tactical combat, once it is their action they disappear from the map and turns take forever. Seems to help if I zoom way in and out and move all over the map...real annoying though.
Started anthys map with 14 civs... all diff with a bunch of custom. 7 of them turned into Altar, with 1 lord relias and a bunch of my randoms. not sure it affected much, but weird.
The main point - once I can handle any of these bigger spawns its pretty lackluster. by this time there are so many stacks to clear its a bit monotonous and while i can barely clear a 5k elemental stack - the AI has NO chance. So I could knock the AI off pretty quickly if I wanted. I have yet to try a wildlands boss though... will do that shortly.